The Egoist eBook

With all these nice calculations at work, Willoughby
stood above himself, contemplating his active machinery,
which he could partly criticize but could not stop,
in a singular wonderment at the aims and schemes and
tremours of one who was handsome, manly, acceptable
in the world’s eyes: and had he not loved
himself most heartily he would have been divided to
the extent of repudiating that urgent and excited half
of his being, whose motions appeared as those of a
body of insects perpetually erecting and repairing
a structure of extraordinary pettiness. He loved
himself too seriously to dwell on the division for
more than a minute or so. But having seen it,
and for the first time, as he believed, his passion
for the woman causing it became surcharged with bitterness,
atrabiliar.

A glance behind him, as he walked away with Dr. Middleton,
showed Clara, cunning creature that she was, airily
executing her malicious graces in the preliminary
courtesies with Mrs. Mountstuart.

CHAPTER XXXV

MISS MIDDLETON AND MRS. MOUNTSTUART

“Sit beside me, fair Middleton,” said
the great lady.

“Gladly,” said Clara, bowing to her title.

“I want to sound you, my dear.”

Clara presented an open countenance with a dim interrogation
on the forehead. “Yes?” she said,
submissively.

“You were one of my bright faces last night.
I was in love with you. Delicate vessels ring
sweetly to a finger-nail, and if the wit is true,
you answer to it; that I can see, and that is what
I like. Most of the people one has at a table
are drums. A ruba-dub-dub on them is the only
way to get a sound. When they can be persuaded
to do it upon one another, they call it conversation.”

“Colonel De Craye was very funny.”

“Funny, and witty too.”

“But never spiteful.”

“These Irish or half Irishmen are my taste.
If they’re not politicians, mind; I mean Irish
gentlemen. I will never have another dinner-party
without one. Our men’s tempers are uncertain.
You can’t get them to forget themselves.
And when the wine is in them the nature comes out,
and they must be buffetting, and up start politics,
and good-bye to harmony! My husband, I am sorry
to say, was one of those who have a long account of
ruined dinners against them. I have seen him and
his friends red as the roast and white as the boiled
with wrath on a popular topic they had excited themselves
over, intrinsically not worth a snap of the fingers.
In London!” exclaimed Mrs. Mountstuart, to aggravate
the charge against her lord in the Shades. “But
town or country, the table should be sacred.
I have heard women say it is a plot on the side of
the men to teach us our littleness. I don’t
believe they have a plot. It would be to compliment
them on a talent. I believe they fall upon one
another blindly, simply because they are full; which
is, we are told, the preparation for the fighting Englishman.
They cannot eat and keep a truce. Did you notice
that dreadful Mr. Capes?”